


An End to a Vampire Story

by VampireBait



Category: L.A. By Night (Web Series), Vampire the Masquerade - Fandom
Genre: F/F, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-27
Updated: 2020-02-27
Packaged: 2021-02-28 05:40:23
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,945
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22928851
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VampireBait/pseuds/VampireBait
Summary: The worst happens
Relationships: Jasper/Eva, Katya/Eva
Comments: 9
Kudos: 13





	An End to a Vampire Story

**Author's Note:**

> Back at the end of season three I had a moment where I realised all Kindred face a violent end. When they eventually die, however and whenever it happens, that death will be painful and brutal.  
> Then I sat and wrote this.
> 
> Please see note at the end x

An End to a Vampire Story

It had been nights. Not enough to be missed but enough for Strauss to ensure that Eva had been punished for the many crimes he said she’d committed.

Eva winced as her wrists were bound cruelly above her head stretching her arms so high that she had to stand on her tiptoes to keep her shoulder muscles from tearing under the pressure. There was a wooden stake at her back. This was the pyre she was to burn on, though there was no kindling at her ankles. The Sun would do that work for the Cam sure enough.

Eva couldn’t stop the telltale tremble of her body, nor the blood tears staining her ivory skin. She was about to die. 

They’d brought her back home. The hill with the Observatory. It was a kindness she hadn’t expected and couldn’t understand, except that perhaps Strauss liked how poetic it was to burn her in her chosen haven.

One more night and Jasper might have started to wonder at her absence. She’d told him her trip would only take so long. She’d been so stupid.

No-one knew she was in trouble. No-one knew to come to her rescue. They’d executed IB that morning after she was found trying to get a message to Victor Temple. Eva closed her eyes against the memory, she was almost relieved that they were just going to burn her. What they’d done to Ib was...she swallowed hard pushing the memory away.

The night was growing ever later. Dawn was not far away now.

Looking up she saw the figures gathered in the headlights at the foot of the hill. Strauss stood out, the light glinting off his tinted red glasses as he turn to look in her direction. Eva flinched under his gaze.

Her stomach twisted as he began to make his way towards her. Behind him the rest of his group were climbing into vehicles and driving away, towards the safety of their havens. They, at least, would escape the dawn.

Strauss approached, unhurried and apparently unconcerned by the closeness of the dawn. 

Eva focused behind him, anywhere but at his face. 

He raised a gloved hand to trace the blood tears on her jawline. 

“You always knew, my dear that it would come to this.”

Eva glanced at him, hatred on her face. He held the gaze calmly until she couldn’t stand it anymore. Her eyes went up to the sky and her beloved stars, fading now.

Strauss, regarded her for a moment then glanced behind him. One of the ghouls gave him a thumbs up. He knodded, turning his attention back to Eva.

“A final gift on parting then, my dear. For your Nosferatu.”

He bent his head, his hand reaching up to hold her still by her hair as he forced his lips against her’s. She fought against him as best she could, in her weakened state, he forced the matter humiliatingly easily. 

As his cold lips pressed against her she felt the unmistakable intrusion of blood sorcery in the touch. 

At length the feeling ended and he let her go. 

Eva furiously twisted her face away from him gasping in disgust. 

Then she froze. 

Lying against her shoulder was a lock of bright crimson hair. Her hair. As it had been before. 

Wide eyed she glanced up at her hands and saw the ivory flesh returned to the pallid peach of a normal Kindred. 

Strauss, stepped back admiring her as she had been forty years before. His curse lifted at last, before her final sunrise.

“Farewell my Dear. I wish you had seen reason.”

He stepped away. To join the other Kindred and their entourage as they went to their cars to flee the oncoming dawn.

A single Ghoul was left. He sat on a stool behind a camera that had been placed directly infront of her ready to capture the final moments of her life. Beyond him, she could see armed guards facing outwards just incase someone tried to save her, though they knew it was already too late for that.

An eternity seemed to pass. Eva watched the horizon, looking out over Gryfyth Park where she had known a few short years of happiness and where she knew Jasper would be going into his day sleep. 

New crimson tears began to flow down her face mingling with the stray wisps of bright hair that blew there in the warm breeze. 

She knew what he would wake to that evening, she wished she could spare him that pain.

The sky began to lighten. 

She turned her face too it, feeling the painful heat begin to make her flesh tingle. 

Gritting her teeth against the pain she looked directly into the camera and smiled fondly at her Nosferatu who would be watching in a few short hours. 

“I love you Jasper…”

The tape was delivered while the Coterie slept. Victor had burned the accompanying note before Jasper and Annabelle had arrived. They never needed to see those words in Strauss’ hand.

Knowing what they were about to see the Baron had tried and failed to stop the younger Kindred from watching. But they would not be swayed.

So the Coterie gathered and watched Eva, brutally tied to the stake. Her body showed signs of mistreatments they didn’t want to imagine. Blood tears stood stark against her alabaster flesh. When Strauss approached her Jasper’s snarl broke the silence. He was quivering with rage and horror, his fangs were out, his hands curled into claws and his eyes flashed with a feral need. 

All too late. They knew that already, so they watched, they witnessed Eva’s suffering because it was all they could do now.

Strauss made a show of his kiss. He turned himself perfectly so the camera would catch every moment of it. He even looked towards the lens, towards Jasper, as the curse that had taken all the colour from Eva was finally lifted.

The Coterie watched in stunned silence as the white mane of her hair began to bleed.

From beneath her flower crown a crimson wave began to flow, coating every strand. Her skin lost the porcelain white and took on a pale human hue. 

When Strauss let her go at last and stepped back Jasper staggered leaning heavily against a chair to hold him up. 

“My Crimson Petal.” he gasped it in agony as he beheld the beauty on the screen. It was soon after that the Sun rose and she burned.

Jasper fled into the night. Mindless with torment and rage he ran. The beast within howled through him, driving him on, urging the kill, the rage. 

Rip Them!! Tear Them!! Drink!!!

It drove him on, he didn’t care if he was seen, didn’t care if a stupid human stepped in his path. He’d tear his way through them. What did it matter? What was any of it to him now? 

The hills of Griffth Park spread before him, ghostly in the dark and silent. The beasts in its vast acres silent for once as though they too knew she was gone. 

The White Witch would walk here no more. 

In Jasper’s mind the world should have stopped and cried out at the moment of her death. Surely they would have felt the agony of her absence. But of course they didn’t. 

He hated them all for that.

The Observatory stood as it always had. Glowing and silhouetted on its hilltop, overlooking the city and the park a point of balance between the wild and the civilised. Eva had loved it here. Jasper slowed at last, the sight of the place bringing back so many memories. The night he’d first seen her, a vision in white with flowers around her, stepping gracefully out of the darkness. It was the first time he’d ever thought a Kindred truly beautiful. If he’d been able to breathe, it would have stolen the breath away to see her that first night. 

Jasper looked to the spot where they’d sat looking up at the stars, the softness of her lips when she’d kissed him that night...he glanced up to see only clouds tonight and remembered that he would never kiss her lips again.

He took his time to walk to the spot he’d seen in the video. He knew it well, it was one of her favourite views. In the spring there were always flowers there, she’d done her best to help them grow when the weather was too dry for too long. Under her care they’d flourished.

He knew what he’d see, but part of him, the part that still refused to believe this nightmare, expected to find the flowers blooming and Eva standing among them. 

She’d be confused, concerned. She’d ask why his face was stained with tears. She’d rest her forehead against his and wipe the blood away. They’d spend the night together, plotting revenge against the Tower and he’d fall into the day sleep with her safe in his arms...

The flowers were gone, burned away leaving a black scar in the earth. The spot had been roped off by the Rangers that watched over the park. A sign nearby asking for the public to remember that campfires were prohibited.

That was her legacy to the humans in the park. She’d known them. Watched over them, and this was her memorial.

Jasper doubled over at the sight of it. The smell of burning Kindred still fresh on the wind for his senses. He’d smelt it before and it never bothered him, but this terrible confirmation, the echo of her final screams...

He dropped to his knees with a howl, screaming his anguish into the clouded night. There should have been stars, there should have been a full moon. For her the world should be burning...but there was just a normal night. It felt so wrong.

He sensed the presence moments later but took his time to look, finding that he didn’t care. Nothing hit him in the meantime, his blood wasn’t boiling in his veins, he found himself disappointed to be left unharmed.

When he finally looked up his eyes found the back of the woman crouched on her knees in amongst the ashes. 

Katya turned to look at him, her usual poise and composure gone. Her hands were stained with Eva’s remains, her face covered in bloody trails. 

He wanted to see hatred in her eyes when she saw him, instead he saw only his own pain reflected back. They’d both loved her.

Jasper’s grief burned white hot with an edge of jealousy. Eva had died looking as Katya remembered her. His Eva, the white witch had been erased before the burning. 

He didn’t even have that as a final memory. The person on that stake was Evangeline and he hadn’t known her...Katya had. That was a piece he was missing. Now he’d never know.

Jasper wanted to rage, he wanted to fight, to tear Katya’s flesh and drink her down. He showed her his fangs in readiness. 

The elder kindred looked at him for a moment then turned away, back to the ashes in her hands. She began muttering brokenly in Russian.

In the back of his mind Jasper recognised the same disregard for her safety as he’d felt. Something in him broke a new. Slowly he stood and approached the kneeling Tremere.

Katya held the ashes to her chest. Lost in her grief she didn’t seem to care as he came closer.

Looking at her, thinking back, Jasper truly saw her for the first time. She was Eva...if Eva had never escaped Strauss forty years ago. 

He stood over her then took a seat in the ashes. Limply he brushed his hood from his head and stared at the oily blackness beneath them both.

“There should be stars.” Katya whispered brokenly. 

Jasper turned slowly to look at her. 

“Or rain.” Katya turned her face to him pleading. “It should have rained for her...she loved...” her voice broke.

Jasper felt his own tears falling anew. The pain in his chest overwhelming.

“Yes...she loved the rain.” He growled low, but with no more fire.

Katya sobbed, lifting her hands she kissed the ashes there not caring as they covered her.

“The night I turned her...the rain...the music...I wish you could know...” 

Jasper didn’t respond. They sat in silence until a small hand, stained black reached out to touch his own. Jasper stared at it before turning to look at the Tremere. She was shaking, her hand on his tightened in earnest.

“I know...I know what you do, Jasper.” 

He blinked not understanding. The woman before him was shattering before his eyes.

“...please...I can’t face this grief again.” Katya let go of his hand and offered her wrist. “Take it all. You could see...you could see my memories.”

She smiled sadly. “Evangeline, she loved us. She would want you to see that.”

Jasper’s beast roared in his chest but it lacked the searing edge of his rage. His expression didn’t change as he took her wrist in his hands. To her obvious surprise he didn’t raise it to his mouth to feed. Instead he drew her towards him, his arms pulling her into his lap, hugging her tightly against him.

It was a comfort he could give in shared grief. One she had not, and could not have from any other creature in the world. Her arms closed round him in final acceptance. As he moved to her neck and pierced the flesh with his fangs she breathed a sigh of gratitude.

He fed until she faded to ashes in his arms. Her remains now indistinguishable from her beloved’s.

True to her wishes, Jasper took everything. She did not resist. As her essence joined with him he let it. 

He gasped as Katya became a part of him and found himself fading. His mind swam with confusing thoughts and memories not his own. 

He clamped down on the kaleidoscope forcing it to slow and stop, then carefully painfully, he searched until he saw one night, one strange bright colourful night with a thousand score humans crushed together dancing singing. 

Music filled the air and flowers were handed out with wild abandon. He walked through it, or rather Katya had, but Jasper, knowing what night this must have been waited.

At last there was a flash of crimson. It caught his eye, drew his attention as it had Katya. The crowd, dense everywhere else seemed to part, creating a space in which a vision danced.

Crimson hair wild and wavy, flowers woven in among the tangles. She wore a simple flowing dress splashed with tie-dye colours that clashed in a way that would have been horrible on anyone else. On her, they were glorious.

He lost himself in the memory. Every look, every smile. The way her voice rang out as she uttered her name for the first time. 

Jasper forgot, that it was Katya’s memory, this was his own. 

This was now.

The studio lights were dimmed to lend sadness to the scene as it was described. Not that any emphasis was needed. 

Jason Carl regarded the weeping coterie from behind his beloved screen. 

“Jasper,” 

He prompted gently, his voice almost a whisper just enough to carry to the player.

“The sun is starting to rise. You know, if you do not seek shelter in the next few minutes you will not be able to make it to safety in time.”

Jasper knodded tears running down his cheeks.

Silence. 

“Alex.” Jason, for the first time broke through the game to the player. His voice soft, understanding. “Is this, where you wish to end Jasper’s story?”

Alaxander Ward grinned, exposing his fangs, tears on his cheeks. He looked up and around his fellow players then met the Storyteller’s gaze. 

“It is.”

Jason smiled, nodded. His voice was calm, soothing it blanketed the sobbing players drawing them back to the lone Nosferatu kneeling in ashes his face turned to the dawn unseeing.

“As the Sun starts to burn your undead flesh you do not feel it. You’re far away Jasper, lost in memories that aren’t yours. 

But, what a gift. 

You dance with her on that first night, you kiss her, you hold her. 

The years, Jasper and Eva have been denied, were lived with Katya and Evangeline, and now you live them. 

While your body burns your spirit has that bliss. 

You hear her laugh, see her cry, hear her sing, for the first time, and she looks on you with pure love in her eyes at last. That memory was but afew nights ago when you held her, pale and colourless. 

That final memory is not Katya’s, that love, that devotion, that is Eva, looking on you as you are.”

The door behind the players opens and Josephine walks out quietly, she wears the white dress and wig of Eva. Tears on her face. Alex’s eyes turn to her. His tears falling freely as she reaches out a hand for him. 

Jason’s voice continues to fall as they embrace.

“That memory, it’s so real that you could swear, through the agony of the Sun’s burn you feel her hands on you, you could look up and see her face and do, even though, now, there are no eyes left to see. She smiles at you and lifts you too your feet. Together you walk into that blinding white dawn.”

The storyteller looks down the camera.

“And here is where we end our vampire story...”

**Author's Note:**

> I agonised over posting this fic because of the last scene.  
> I do not condone the use of real people in fanfiction.  
> Alex and Josephine appear here because the fic went that way for what I was feeling.  
> If this ever happened in game I would want this kind of closure and the fic felt like it needed this ending.  
> I posted it because I feel that this ending is little more than a cameo, not placing either actor personally into the story or presuming anything.  
> However if either one wishes me to remove this fic because of it, I will do so in a heartbeat.


End file.
